Project Coordinator – Business Support, Strengthening Nutrition in Priority Staples At Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition

About the Role

The Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) is seeking a Project Coordinator, Business Support, SNIPS to coordinate the implementation of the Business Support component of the project. This role will be offered on a one(1) year fixed term contract, subject to availability of funding and will be based in Abuja, Nigeria.

The Strengthening Nutrition in Priority Staples Project (SNIPS) in Nigeria, in partnership with GIZ and the Green Innovation Centre for the Agricultural and Food Sector in Nigeria, is working on four priority value chains – Vitamin A Cassava, Vitamin A Maize, Rice, and Orange Fleshed Sweet Potato – to bring forward innovations with the potential to contribute to smallholder farmers’ livelihoods and sustainable rural development. The project focuses on productivity, incomes, and jobs for smallholder farmers active in the priority value chains. This GAIN investment is an integrated plan to support and strengthen the GIC, adding a nutrition lens to make the intervention more nutrition-sensitive over the next two years in four GIC states, namely Kaduna, Benue, Nasarawa and Oyo states.

The Business Support component is designed to empower women and young people and unleash the creativity and energy of youth and women to support their families, succeed in agri-business, attempt to tackle malnutrition, and prevent foodborne illnesses and food and social insecurity. This component has increased women’s and youth’s involvement in value-added agriculture and entrepreneurship that directly addresses the specific challenges women and rural youth face in the four focal states for this project. It responds to opportunities to harness the political will at local, state, and national levels in Nigeria to invest in creating economic opportunities for women and youth in the production, processing, and sale of nutritious and safe foods. This is achieved by significantly increasing the knowledge and information available to women and young people about nutrition and food safety, increasing their participation in decision-making, and targeting business support and investments so they can bring forward innovations, increase livelihood opportunities and build nutrition sensitivity into the GIC value chains.

The Project Coordinator will support the Project Manager, Supply Chains for Commercialization and will be directly responsible for coordinating the implementation of the Business Support component of the project. The post-holder will be expected to develop strong relationships with relevant partners, exploiting synergies within GAIN and with external stakeholders to ensure continued, effective project delivery. The Project Coordinator, in close collaboration with the Project Manager, has overall responsibility for the day-to-day operational delivery, implementation, and monitoring of the project, specifically focusing on tracking the progress and status of project activities. They play a coordination role in GAIN’s cross-functional project teams and support the maintenance of relationships with partners and stakeholders.

They are responsible for liaising with stakeholders within their assigned project components and ensuring that project outputs and activities are successfully implemented within approved plans, budgets, timelines, and quality standards.

Key Responsibilities include:

Lead the development and delivery of comprehensive training programs for MSMEs, covering business optimisation, access to markets, financial literacy, food safety management systems (FSMS), and quality management systems (QMS).
Identify funding opportunities and manage grants aimed at the growth and sustainability of nutritious businesses. Assist MSMEs in navigating the funding process, aligning with project objectives while adhering to financial and reporting guidelines.
Collaborate with MSMEs and stakeholders to refine strategies for efficient nutritious food supply chains, incorporating nutrition-sensitive practices and innovations.
Co-implement and co-manage frameworks to assess the impact of project interventions on MSME growth, food product quality and safety, and nutrition outcomes. Produce detailed reports for stakeholders, summarizing progress, achievements, and insights.
Promote policies and practices that support nutritious food market development.
Supports the Project Manager in preparing donors’ reports in collaboration with project, technical, funding, and support teams.

About you

The ideal candidate will have demonstrated experience providing technical support to MSMEs in accessing funding/financing and building their capacity in terms of business optimisation, access to markets, financial literacy while adopting food safety management and quality systems. You should have experience establishing partnerships with state governments , development agencies and regulatory bodies to support production and distribution of safe nutritious foods.

You should have direct experience working with MSMEs preferably in the nutrition space guiding on efficient food supply chains while incorporating nutrition sensitive practices and innovations through strategies such as social behaviour change communication.

Project management experience is critical to succeed in this role as the Project Coordinator will be responsible for coordinating the Business Support component of the SNIPs project with expectation to develop strong relationships with key partners. You should have experience in day-to-day operational implementation and monitoring of a project.

An education background with a degree in agricultural economics, development studies, business management, sustainable development or related field is required. A deep understanding of private sector especially MSMEs is key to succeed in this role.

About our Offer

The starting gross salary on offer for this role is from NGN 9’558’516-NGN 10’907’460 gross per annum, depending on experience.

GAIN has a fair and competitive salary structure that allows for annual progression subject to good performance. In addition, GAIN offers a total of 37 days holiday per year (including annual leave, public holidays and additional office closure days), an attractive pension scheme and competitive insurance cover including health, travel and life assurance. We are committed to the health of our staff, especially in these challenging times, and have developed a programme of wellbeing that includes flexible and hybrid working, additional leave allowances, wellbeing days, mindfulness coaching and access to independent and confidential counselling.

GAIN also has a strong commitment to professional development. We will support you to grow in your career through both formal and informal training, and are committed to providing opportunities through internal recruitment, secondments, and promotion. All of this is delivered in a supportive and collaborative environment.

About GAIN

The Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) is a Swiss-based foundation launched at the United Nations in 2002 to tackle the human suffering caused by malnutrition. Due to COVID19, conflict in Ukraine and climate change, malnutrition and hunger have worsened significantly since 2019, reversing a decade of progress. There is growing recognition that our food systems need to change if we are to reverse these trends.

GAIN’s Strategy aims to transform food systems to make healthier diets from sustainable food systems accessible to all people and especially those whose are most vulnerable to shocks. By 2027, we aim to improve the access of 1.5 billion people to nutritionally enhanced staple foods, improve the access of 25 million people to healthier diets, and support positive food system change in 10 countries. This is bold and complex, and the only way to achieve this is to work together with partners including governments, businesses, and civil society at the country and global level. These goals, and the ways of achieving them, build on our twenty-year legacy of transforming people’s lives with improved nutrition through concerted action and effective policy change.

Our Working Culture and Environment

We provide a flexible working environment that includes a combination of home and office working opportunities through our global hybrid working policy. This encourages our staff to have a healthy work-life balance and increases staff motivation, enriches employee wellbeing, and improves performance and productivity.

All of our positions are based in one or more of GAIN’s designated offices as stated on our job advertisements. Successful candidates will be based in one of GAIN’s country offices and must have the existing right to live and work within a reasonably commutable distance of the relevant city / cities in which the role is advertised. Please note, that GAIN does not sponsor working visas and relocations.

GAIN reserves the right to withdraw an offer of employment for candidates who are considered to ineligible under the above conditions during or after the recruitment process.

Applicants must have the right to work and be currently based in the advertised country location, to be eligible to apply for this position.

This advert closes on 26th March 2024. Early applications are encouraged. GAIN reserves the right to close this advert early should we receive suitable candidates ahead of the closing date.

The Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition is committed to equality of opportunity and creating an inclusive environment where diversity is valued. We are keen to reflect the diversity of our society at every level within our organisation and therefore welcome applications from talented and committed people from all backgrounds, representing the diverse societies we operate in.